Ivory Bones
by Victorian Asylum
Summary: She was pure ivory, right down to the blood in her veins; beautiful and rare and so very hard to break. But even ivory can be carved when the blade is sharp enough. / Weiss-centric / [Blake/Weiss on the side] / Trigger Warning: Abuse


The knowledge that she is not her own, that the snowflakes carefully embroidered on all her clothes are shackles of a force fed destiny, is slow to dawn on her.

The outside world is a novelty, coveted and cherished, but an unknown. She has no basis to understand that the current life she leads is not the way others live. Her father is a ghost to Weiss, looming, tall and refined, over her life. But she hardly sees him, can't comprehend the existence of a man who's only imprint on her is vague memories of a heavy hand on her shoulder. Five years old, and she has been raised by maids and nannies, with stern, weathered faces and fearful eyes. There is a tenderness in the way they hold her, play with her. But only when they are not haunted.

She is too young to understand her father does not wish her coddled. Does not wish love upon her. Unaware that the meager attention paid to her is a small act of defiance and weakness, that there is an infinite amount bestowed upon children of a different fate and circumstance, she lives her life in ignorance. Weiss doesn't know that the pain inflicted on her for failure is unusual. She simply learns to do better.

When schooling begins, she is tutored, and there are precious few moments she has to herself that do not involve schoolwork, and she cherishes such moments. Weiss is only seven when she feels the sting of her father's anger. He has been slowly materializing in her life, becoming a being of flesh and blood, spirit given form. He finds her sprawled out on her bedroom floor, playing with a doll instead of reviewing Vale's history.

He drags her up by the collar of her dress and one arm, a cold anger spilling from his eyes and Weiss shies away, his grip on her forearm bruising. "What do you think you're doing?" He says coldly, releasing her. Weiss stumbles and shrinks before his gaze.

"P-playing with m-my dolls." She whimpers, confusion evident. Her teachers and nannies have never cared what she did in her free time, as long as she had done her homework, and would clean up after herself. Why should father think differently?

"A Schnee does not play. Not when she has work to do." It takes a moment for Weiss to register the slap. Her head jerks sideways, and she finds herself staring at the wall, and the back of her father's hand, studded with rings. Then pain floods her cheek and she cradles it, tears springing to her eyes. She turns to look at her father, betrayal welling inside her. Her father regards her with an indifferent look, smoothing out his jacket. He walks out of the room without a word. Weiss should have learned her lesson then. Instead, she only learned secrecy, until that, too, is beaten out of her.

As she grows, her father becomes a more powerful presence in her life, carving her into the perfect successor. He teaches her what he believes she needs to know, sees to it personally that she learns things no professor can tell her. And where her father's tutelage ends, her tutoring begins. The best teachers money could buy, all cramming her head full of arithmetic, language, history, everything a Schnee needs. He wants a well-read and intelligent daughter, someone he would be proud to show off and parade.

And any error is swiftly corrected, viciously beat down. Her father's hand has been replaced by a well-worn belt, the leather leaving angry red welts on her back on good days. Raw, bloodied and ragged flesh on the bad ones. Weiss learns to hold her tongue during the beatings. Any pleas to stop only adds more tallies to the fraying leather rasping across her flesh. Father always wants her to look picture perfect. Anything that marred her face would not do. Her pale skin bruised easy, and took weeks to heal.

So she matures into the perfect daughter, speaking only when spoken to, a smart, pretty young thing with all the knowledge in the world, yet no knowledge of the world. She knows by now she is a tool of her father and is a product of destiny, tethered to the Schnee name by blood, weighed down by a looming destiny that hangs likes a noose around her. But she sees an opportunity to change that, to wretch a part of her life from her father's hand and cradle it with her own delicate fingers.

She is twelve when she walks into her father's office, shoulders squared and body rigid to prevent any shaking. Weiss is terrified. The likely outcome of this is a vicious, merciless lashing to beat rebellion out of her. But she will not give up without a fight. Not today. "I wish to become a huntress."

Her father raises an eyebrow, leaning foreword in his chair, hands resting on his desk. Even sitting he is taller than her. " You? A huntress? You are weak."

The words sting, truth heavy in her heart, and Weiss bites her lip. "But I can become strong, with training."

"I assume, then, that you have a good reason to suggest such a thing."

Of course. She wished to get away from her father, she wanted to become her own person, free from his overbearing influence. She didn't want to be a Schnee. She wanted to be Weiss, her own person. Her life was to be her own, not someone's plaything, not clay to be molded and thrown to the kiln to harden. Her life was not set in stone yet, and she would break the mold now, before chance prevented her from doing so. But she had thought this through, her father's daughter in at least one aspect, and the perfect lie had surfaced. "It would be great publicity. People would see that the Schnee Dust Company is here to help, and that we are active in trying to make the world safer. Having the future heir to the company as a huntress would show that you aren't afraid to take a personal role in helping Vale."

Her father considers her words, regarding her with a guarded look. Weiss worries he can see right through her lie. He faces liars and worse everyday, people far better than a child. But, whatever he sees and whatever he thinks, he relents, if only just. "Alright. I will train you, and you will attend Beacon when you are of age. If I am to indulge you, you will not be sent to a petty school. But there is one condition."

"Anything," Weiss breathes, excitement lacing her veins. She has done it!

"You will maintain top marks, or you will be pulled from school. Am I clear?"

She nods.

Her training starts the next day, and she is disappointed to walk into the room, only to be instructed to pick up a fencing sword. This was not what she had in mind. Her father spends months teaching her proper techniques, how to hold her sword the right way, where to put her feet. She falls asleep with arms and back aching, and that is only the beginning. When she has mastered the basics, she learns different means of attacking and blocking, when to dodge and when to parry. And it is endless days of learning and practicing such techniques until she can run through them blindfolded, days blending into weeks and then months and then years.

During this time, her father's grip tightens around her like a vice, and she looses sight of her initial purpose, swayed by her father, until she is positive it was his intention for her to become a huntress. Individuality is lost, broken, and she knows he has won. She is a Schnee, born and bred, till the day she dies. The thought is disheartening, and she spends many sleepless nights tracing the scars on her body, testaments to her father's power, wondering why she ever thought she could own her life.

It takes years for her to finally start fighting, and the sessions with her father are brutal. No breaks, no excuses, no padding. Every mistake is met by the swift rap of metal on flesh, her father's heavy metal sword smacking her hands, her shoulders, her stomach. Pain flairs with every hit, and she learns to get better, if only to avoid the brutal beating. Father does not hold back. She has broken fingers and ribs and bruised countless times under his regime. He hardly waits for bones to reset before training resumes. He will not indulge recovery long. Weiss has, on occasion, been forced to switch to her right hand, if only to let her left heal and avoid mangling. To this day, three of the fingers on her right hand are crooked, products of her fathers intolerance for weakness, broken repeatedly with no time to heal.

But she gets better. Broken bones are rare, bruises infrequent. She can even land hits on her father, but she tempers them so they are only light taps. Full fledged hits would be catastrophic to her health, so she does not dare to inflict pain on him for fear of his awful reprimand. And though she has gotten stronger, lean muscles forming beneath her skin and straining against her clothes, she knows she could never do as much damage as he does. She has speed and flexibility and uses it to her advantage. Weiss may be imagining it, but she think she sees a small flash of pride with every hit she lands.

On her sixteenth birthday, father gives her Myrtenaster, and challenges her to one last duel. This one is different. Her weapon is sharpened to perfection, and she is allowed to use her semblance. Her father wields a similar blade, passed down for generations, his sleeves rolled up, face grim. There will be no holding back now. Weiss learns just how much her father had been restraining himself before, when she moves to attack and he blocks, kicking her hard in the stomach and sending her staggering. She coughs, heaving on the ground, and barely manages to roll out of the way as her father blade slices the air before her, narrowly missing her nose. This is serious.

She uses her speed to dodge his attacks, knowing that if she blocked, her would easily overpower and disarm her. Weiss tempers her hits out of habit, landing light blows that severely cost her. Her father lands hit after bruising hit, the flat of his blade resonating off her skin, singing a song of scorching pain. Soon, Weiss refuses to hold back. And, as she does, she realizes her father does too. She runs circles around him, but every swing of her blade is met by a more powerful swing of her fathers, forcing her retreat. She cannot land a hit, until she notices a break in her father's defenses. She goes for it, using a glyph for speed and runs right under his arm, her blade drawing a thin slash across his side.

It is a superficial wound, hardly bleeding, and Weiss smiles, proud that she finally landed a hit, until she sees her father's expression. He stares at the wound, lightly touching a finger to it, entranced by the sight of his own blood, drawn by his daughter. He looks surprised, ignoring the slit in his suit, before his eyes narrow and his jaw clenches. Weiss has made a big mistake. "Father-" She begins, brokenly, dropping her weapon and stepping foreword. "I-"

Her sentence ends in a strangled cry as her father lunges suddenly, jerking his sword upwards and white hot pain slices across her face. She falls to her knees, cradling her injury, blood running through her fingers. She can't see out of her eye. Is it too much blood clogging her sight or did father cut too deep? Her heart stops at the thought. She can hear the patter of blood, her blood, as it hits the tiled floor and her father's measure steps and he comes to a stop in front of her, crouching down and wrenching her hand away before tilting her chin up to admire his handiwork. Weiss shakes, choking back a sob of pain.

"A shame it had to be the face, but you must learn. You are not ready to wield that weapon if you are going to hold back. Strike to kill. You are a Schnee, girl, and a Schnee always wins."

"But what if I'd killed you!"

"You are truly pathetic if you think someone with as little training as you could even beat me, let alone kill me. I was once a hunter. You are but a child." He stands. "I do not tolerate weakness."

Weiss holds a hand to her wound as maids rush in. She vows to never show such weakness again. If she faced her father in combat, she would not hold back. When a doctor arrives and examines her injury, he determines that she will retain her sight, but it will scar. The wound is stitched shut and a bandage wrapped around her eye. When she goes to train the next day, another man has taken the place of her father, her instructor for the rest of her time. In the following year, Weiss works out her frustration on the new tutor, her vicious resolve staggering, and he eventually quits. Two more instructors fall to her wrath. But on the final day of her training, when her father comes to visit to see her progress, she knows she isn't imagining the approval in his eyes at the calculated viciousness of her strikes.

XXX

At Beacon, far away from her father and his unceasing presence, her anger dissipates, pent up aggression taken out on Grimm. She is at the top of her class, despite a rocky start and clashes with her team. She wants to spite her father somehow, but her upbringing is too deep, the roots of her father's influence nestled well within in her heart, so she strives to keep her rank, spends countless hours training and studying to stay on top until her eyes are bloodshot and muscles are nothing but magma burning beneath her skin.

After a particularly strenuous bought of training she stands in her dorms bathroom, peering at her reflection in the half fogged mirror. Her hair is down, tangled white locks draped over one shoulder, dripping with water she has yet to dry. Without her signature look, she is almost a stranger. She may as well be. Without her clothes, her shoulders hunched, too tired to stand proud or have her back ramrod straight, she looks too different. A shell of herself. No one is around to see her reality anyway, so she feels no need to carry herself as usual. Weiss has long since given up trying to prove her skin deep confidence to herself. It's all a lie.

Stripped down physically and emotionally, Weiss can see herself the way others must. She is small, occupying little space. Her body, thought it belies muscles coiled beneath, is fragile to look at. Her ribs protrude from her skin, visible especially when she breathes in deep. She looks gaunt, collarbones prominent as well as cheekbones, jawline sharp as a knife. She couldn't put on weight if she tried, she will always look frail and weak. One could easily wrap their hand around her wrist like a shackle. Yang's hand was big enough to completely engulf her wrist and snap it like a twig. It was little wonder people treated her like glass, something to be defended.

Weiss touched the scar on her face, rage bubbling, cool and reassuring, inside her bones. But the week has been stressful, and she is too tired and worn down to indulge in familiar anger. So she drops her hand and closes her eyes. She hates the scar, the way people always stop and look at it, pondering its origin. She despises the fact that, unlike the others, she cannot hide this. Weiss is so very careful about the network of lines, the puckered flesh that snakes down her back in winding, criss crossing patterns. She refuses to change in front of other. Will only swim if she can find something that will completely cover her back. Her clothes never dip below her shoulders. The questions and looks would be unbearable if people saw the nightmare her back had become.

The doorknob turns and Weiss opens her eyes, too slow to react before the door opens and Blake steps inside. The faunus stops suddenly, cheeks flaming and quickly averts her gaze from Weiss's naked form. "Ah, I-I'm sorry." She mumbles, usual cool composure momentarily broken. "It was quiet, I thought it was unoccupied."

"It's fine," Weiss answers with a tired sigh, reaching for her robe.

Blake must have glanced up – curiosity perhaps - because she lets out a soft gasp, and Weiss knows she is not staring at her naked form. She grips the robe and tugs it off its hook but Blake stops her when her finger snake around her wrist. It was a gentle hold, one Weiss could easily break out of. But she is tired, and does not wish to fight. Comfort was a commodity she could use today. She tilts her head to look at Blake, whose amber eyes reflect her worry. "Weiss..." She begins, before trailing off, unsure where to begin. At least she didn't seem to pity her, only regarded her with a look of understanding and slight curiosity.

"Father would not except anything less than a perfect daughter. Mistakes were corrected. A Schnee never makes mistakes." Weiss averts her gaze. She has made many. It seems a permanent fault of hers.

Blake releases her hold and Weiss drops her arm, and the robe. Silence engulfs them, before Blake whispers, "May I?", her fingertips ghosting over the skin of Weiss's back. Weiss swallows thickly and nods, shivering at the contact as Blake trails a careful finger across the network of raised flesh, hand tender in its exploration, a feeling foreign to Weiss.

"A Schnee must be the best." Weiss says in the quiet, meeting Blake's eyes for a brief moment in the mirror. "But I'm not perfect. Not yet."

"Your father did this to you?" She asks as her fingers wander lower, disgust clear in her voice.

"Yes. He much preferred the belt. It didn't hurt his hand." Weiss closes her hands around the lip of the sink, gripping it tight. "He could be... overzealous at times."

Blake's hand is on her lower back, where fewer scar reside, but Weiss has to suppress another shiver at the contact, knuckles going even whiter as she holds the sink like a vice. "That bastard," Blake mutters. A moment later, her wandering hand stills, and she gently turns Weiss around, asking permission with soft hands around her shoulders, waiting for her to resist. But she is compliant. Weiss knows she should feel embarrassed, standing naked in front of her teammate, history bared for the faunus to see. But her weariness is bone deep, and somehow she feels that Blake understands, if only a little. And the faunus is hardly looking at her body anyway.

Blake touches the scar that splits her face, and Weiss flinches out of habit. Blake recoils and Weiss shakes her head, guiding her fingers back to the gouged out wound, a canyon of a story lost inside the torn skin. "And is this a product of your father's correction?" She asks, eyebrows drawn, expression grim.

The memory is white hot in Weiss's mind, and she pushes it away as best she can. But it wells up inside her, the spearhead of a thousand ugly memories, and she feels tears prickling at her eyes. Before she can reign in her emotions, she clutches Blake, hands grabbing fistfuls of the taller girl's shirt and burying her face in her shoulder. Blake staggers, back slamming against the far wall, but she wraps her arms around Weiss none the less and holds her close. Weiss sobs into her teammate's shoulder, all her pent up anger and sadness and twisted emotions spilling over after years of being kept under tight wraps. It takes what feels like years for her shoulders to stop shaking, and as she slowly becomes aware of her surroundings, she finds that they have both ended up on the floor, and she is sitting in Blake's lap. The other girl is running her fingers through her damp hair, free hand rubbing mindless patterns across her scars.

"You know, most people would offer condolences after learning of my past," Weiss says, voice ragged from crying, throat raw.

"But you don't want my sympathy or healing. You want understanding."

Weiss's laugh is bitter. "Perhaps I only seek an even more basic feeling. Comfort." How pitiful she must truly be in this moment. She was taught never to lean on another, never rely on them, form bonds with them. A Schnee will do anything to stay on top. Indulging in things like this only makes her weak, and that weakness will prevent her from touching success if she is ill-prepared to crush any and everyone. Her father always said she would run Schnee Dust right into the ground. Perhaps he was right.

"You're not a machine, Weiss."

"I'm sure my father wishes I were. Perhaps he's built himself one, a successor. Someone who won't embarrass him." Weiss leans back. "Look at me, in the arms of a faunus, no less."

If Blake takes offense, she makes no sign of it. Weiss runs a hand over her face, a senseless, careless gesture, fingers cold against the faunus's skin. Something tugs at her heart, a hook that pulls her towards Blake, makes her look into amber eyes. The mutual glance is a tether, binding them together in this instant of pure, unadulterated harmony. Weiss wants to think Blake understands her, somehow, despite vastly different childhoods. Wants to believe that they share something in common. How else could she fall so easily into someone, as if they've lived a hundred lifetimes together? But her thoughts desert her, slowly, a sunset of scattered light beams that linger, then vanish. Nothing is alright, but for the first time in a long time, every thing that has hung like shackles and weights around her is beaten back until she can truly breath, inhalations deep, heavy, full.

It's an odd sort of gravity that holds her to the world, and she and Blake drift slowly together, and Weiss realizes just how close she is, nose an inch away. Blake's jaw is warm beneath her palms, and she is calm, unmoving, perhaps waiting. A singular thought tugs at the base of her skull, demanding to be entertained, and for once, she listens, indulges in an act that isn't an echo of her father's requests.

It is not at all soft or cute or anything Weiss imagined her first kiss to be. It is raw and angry, electrified with emotions, a clash of tongue and teeth that leaves her breathless when she pulls away. Blake's lower lip is split, her doing, and she makes to move her hand hand up, run over the wound slowly welling with beads of blood, but she stops, drops her hands completely. Suddenly her whole world is different, shifted in a way it hasn't done in over a decade, and she wonders at the absurdity of it.

Blake watches her, a look of confusion leaking through her calculated gaze. She runs a thumb over her mouth, wipes away the blood, waits for Weiss to make a move.

Blake is everything her father hates. If he knew who she was, Weiss would be pulled from the team so fast she'd likely suffer whiplash. He would not stand for someone so despicable in his eyes to associate with his daughter. Blake was perhaps the only person Weiss could not get tangled in, involved with in whatever relationship had blossomed tonight. She refuses to drag Blake down with her, use her for her petty revenge against her father. Blake deserves better, and that simply wasn't Weiss. She wasn't the best, she wasn't even good, she was just a girl who'd waged a war that would span her lifetime in the hopes of gluing back the pieces her father had carved from her and covering the pretty statue he'd made.

Weiss stands, and just like that, the tether is broken, leaving strings of each other in the other's heart. Her tongue is tied, trapping all the things she wishes to say behind her teeth. She grabs her discarded robe, pulls it over her shoulders and covers the puckered pink lines on her back. It's strange how naked she feels now, covered up. It was startling. The moment she had just broken was too intimate, left her stripped to the bone. She was wholly unprepared.

She is conscious of how shitty she's made the situation, deliberately avoiding adding meaning, tip toeing around topics and words too deep, things she wishes to remain unsaid. "You can have the bathroom to yourself, now," she says haltingly, grabbing the handle before the words stuck in her throat could pluck at her vocal cords.

"You aren't your father," Blake says in her quiet, contemplative way, as Weiss is opening the door.

She's tempted to look back, but if she does, everything will be different, more so than it already is, and she isn't ready. So she doesn't. "Not yet," she answers, shuts the door behind her. The silence is deafening in the wake of what has been left unsaid. She leans heavily against the lacquered wood, drops her face into her hands. She was dabbling in things she shouldn't be, had left a part of her somewhere in that singular moment. She wasn't here to make friends, or date. She wasn't even here for herself, not anymore. She was here for her father, and that was something she couldn't afford to forget.

Weiss touched the scar on her cheek, so long a hated, horrid thing, a reminder of what she was, who her blood belonged to. But, for the first time since that blade had severed skin, the wound felt beautiful. She was wanted, not because she was a commodity, a bargaining chip, but simply because she was human, and should be cherished as such. Blake had found the little girl tucked away in the recesses of Weiss's heart, the child who still held fast to innocence and a belief that the world was in her hands.

It was a fleeting feeling, evaporated not long after it was called into being, but for a small, glorious moment, she was not Weiss Schnee, heiress to Schnee Dust Company.

She was simply Weiss.

Flawed, and human.

**XXX**

**A/N:** This has been sitting in my folder for months and I finally mustered the will to finish it.


End file.
